Twitter Updates

The Iranian regime has announced that it's using its police apparatus and Interpol to go after Dr Arash Hejazi.

Why?

He spoke out on the BBC about his experience of witnessing the murder of Neda Aga-Soltan at close quarters, and trying in vain to use his medical skills to save her. What's more he spoke of seeing the outraged crowd of protesters capture the Basiji thug who fired the shot, the Basiji's cries that he "didn't mean to kill her", and the crowd's having disarmed him and let him go.

Arash Hejazi's dramatic interview includes his fears of how the Iranian regime will respond to his testimony. "They will put all sorts of things on me," he says--it's about seven minutes into this clip. He knows he is now a marked man.

Iran's police chief, Brigadier General Ismail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, said 1,032 people had been arrested since the 12 June election, but he claimed that most had since been released."Those who are still in detention were referred to the public and revolutionary courts in Tehran," Fars News Agency quoted him as saying, according to Reuters.Ahmadi-Moghaddam said 20 "rioters" had been killed during the unrest and more than 500 police had been injured.He also asked Interpol to arrest Arash Hejazi, the doctor who was filmed coming to the aid of Neda Soltan after she was shot in the widely seen video of her death.

Hejazi fled to London after the incident and suggested that a Basij militiaman on a motorbike was responsible for her killing."Her killing was a planned scenario and had no relation with the riots in Tehran," Ahmadi-Moghaddam said.

You don't have to look far to work out what story the Iranian regime is going to try and lay on Arash Hejazi. Here's Ahmadinejad's version of what happened as put out on the Iranian propaganda tool, Press TV:

The massive propaganda of the foreign media, as well as other evidence, proves the interference of the enemies of the Iranian nation who want to take political advantage and darken the pure face of the Islamic republic," he said in a letter to Shahroudi, according to the news agency.

The letter comes a day after Iran's government-backed Press TV said Agha-Soltan did not die the way the opposition claims.

Two people told Press TV there were no security forces in the area when she was killed. And the network said the type of bullet that killed her is not used by Iranian security forces.

A man who told the network that he had helped take her to a hospital said, "There were no security forces or any member of the Basij" paramilitary present when she was killed.

The Guardian's version makes it look as if Dr Arash Hejazi ran away. In fact, Arash Hejazi is currently based in England in order to pursue a postgraduate degree at the Oxford Brookes University in publishing; he was on a visit to Tehran when, like Neda Soltan, he landed up on the scene of the shooting during the course of one of the biggest street protests against the declaration of the faked results of the Iranian election.

The Guardian also fails to tell its readers about Arash Hejazi's background as an award-winning writer and publisher. I would have linked you to his excellent website, which documents his own writings and his publication of democracy activists both in and beyond Iran. But it was based on an Iranian ISP, and in the last few days, it's been taken down. What a surprise.

But you can still find a good account of Arash's extraordinary and impressive achievements on his Wikipedia page. There's a telling account by him of the impact of the Iranian regime's censorship methods here.

It's a shame that the Wikipedia page doesn't carry the information which was on his now vanished website about the last time he was in trouble with the Iranian regime. One of his publishing ventures was shut down after he published a story by Primo Levi. Now, I wonder why the Iranian regime would have wanted to do that?

I hope that Interpol and the British government will respond with the contempt the Iranian regime deserves to any requests to turn over Arash Hejazi to them.

At the height of the pouring out of mass demonstrations on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, I started writing the post which is appended to this one.

But I hadn't finished it when tonight, one of the key Twitterers from inside Iran came back after a silence of several days. Over the last hour or two, he's been running a series of tweets telling the story of what happened to some of his fellow Tehran university protesters as they got rounded up by the security apparatus of the Iranian regime.

So I'm editing together the series of tweets to form this continuous post. I don't know if it's safe to give his Twitter name. I want to pay tribute again as I did repeatedly on Twitter, and as I did in the original draft below, to his honesty, his courage and his unfailing commitment to bear witness to what's going on in this uprising.

The tweets from him presented here run backwards--latest first (it came up four minutes ago), down to the first of the series, which he put up about an hour ago. I'll keep updating them as long as he's able to go on telling this story of what's been happening to the arrested protesters.

It's classic police state stuff.

May the Almighty protect him and his fellow protesters, strengthen them and keep them safe.

the biggest help: spread the news & don't desert us! it may take some time but we will take what is rightfully ours!8 minutes agofrom web

why BBC & CNN reporting things like it's all over now? how can it be over after what gov done to us?3 minutes agofrom web

the numbers of protectors were far more than 5000! the entire district was full of people

this is going to happen on every national occasion & gov has no excuse to stop us!13 minutes agofrom web

Karoubi was there in person & Mousavi said he was stuck in traffic but we heard him through his cellphone & loudspeakers15 minutes agofrom web

it may work on a short period of time, but they can't stop what is already started, today's rally was a clear proof18 minutes agofrom web

Gov is working hard on State TV trying to depress people & stop them from fighting back20 minutes agofrom web

we passed a letter to Karoubi today describing everything we know about various students conditionsless than a minute agofrom web

the student community will stand to the very end! we won't forget what they have done to us!

a man came and say they will be released today and an hour later another came & say they will be in prison for 10year!2 minutes agofrom web

Reza said it looked like they have no idea what should they do with so much people4 minutes agofrom web

all types of gov agents came & go in the next couple of days, moving people, forcing them to walk or just stand for a long time6 minutes agofrom web

according to Reza some of the injured people already passed out and a taxi driver looked like dead by that time10 minutes agofrom web

In first day at Evin prison staff started searching for severely injured people & gave them some first aid4 minutes agofrom web

and another hour passed just standing in the row at the entrance of prison & filling out forms8 minutes agofrom web

it took near 3 hours to get to the prison, Reza said the driver seemed enjoys wandering in the streets11 minutes agofrom web

Reza had no idea why they select some of the people and where they moved the others16 minutes agofrom web

apparently they released some people on that night & move Reza & some of the selected people to Evin17 minutes agofrom web

around 3am day 2 they started moving people in vans, Reza said a driver was talking to a Basiji about Evin prison is full and what shoul ...20 minutes agofrom web

Reza said some people sign them & some other just faked their signs & names, there were not enough confession papers for all people24 minutes agofrom web

and they paid to go to streets and say things & they know they have violated national security & Islam26 minutes agofrom web

the papers were prewritten confessions all in different hand writings saying the signer is a member of organization by mousavi27 minutes agofrom web

He said in the second day some pain cloth people came with papers forcing people to sign them32 minutes agofrom web

there was also a awful problem of only one toilet for all people in there and a impossible time limit of around 1min for each person34 minutes agofrom web

Reza said the only exception was they didn't hit arrested people directly in the face39 minutes agofrom web

they didn't open the plastic handcuffs for a day & half, & randomly beat up people in there44 minutes agofrom web

Reza estimated around 200 people were in each room and there were not enough space to even sit on the groundabout 1 hour agofrom web

he said all sort of people were there & some of them were just unlucky people just walking in streets and captured for no reasonabout 1 hour agofrom web

he spent his first 48h of arrest at level -4 of ministry of interior building without food or waterabout 1 hour agofrom web

my connection is very poor & I don't know how long I will be able to sustain itabout 1 hour agofrom web

Reza released from Hospital yesterday he is banned from university and now is a stared [marked by gov] studentabout 1 hour agofrom web

1:17AM finally managed to load twitter! HTTPS protocol is still blocked by some ISP & no chance getting to twitter with apps

Drafted on 16th June:

I'm keeping up with what's going on in Iran via this Tweetgrid link, which shows the tweets of protesters in Iran alongside a flood of messages from commenters across the world.

It was Twitter that alerted me to what was beginning to roll on Sunday. I picked up a couple of Tweeter names from my usual followees which were putting out angry protest messages in some contrast to what was running on the MSM-- who were running Ahmadinejad's contemptuous dismissal of the protesters as a variant on disappointed football team losers.

The BBC was running headlines about Mousavi as "the loser", as if to imply that there was certainly no question of doubt about Ahmadinejad's victory.

Then I began reading the tweets of two Iranian students, one obviously under siege in the University of Tehran, the other seeming to have a broader set of contacts across Iran. Then there were the tweets coming from non-Iranians picking up messages and videos coming out of Iran.

I sat up till 3:00am on Sunday night following the tweets from the students besieged in Tehran University. By Monday morning, I emailed my daughter and son-in-law the Tweetgrid link and urged them to follow it.

One of the things that most impressed me and convinced me of the potential power of this movement was the way in which one of the besieged student tweeters sent message after message where he acknowledged his own fear-- he described himself as shaking and sweating with fear-- as he saw the security forces attacking the adjoining building and sought help for a severely wounded friend. He also felt fear at the thought of what might happen at the demo called for the next day. I saw the tweets reporting government threats that the proposed demo must not go ahead because it had been declared illegal, and that protesters would be met by live bullets. He wasn't sure whether to go or not--it was clear that disinformation was being spread fast.